19 February 2009

Heights Books—which, we learned last year, had to vacate its longtime home on Montague Street—has found a new home at 120 Smith Street.

This area of Brooklyn is suddenly becoming quite literary. This is the second time in a year that a homeless book store has found new roots in the South Brooklyn area. In 2008, Manhattan's 12th Street Books relocated on Atlantic Avenue, renaming itself Atlantic Books. (No word on whether Heights Books will consider a name change—it'll be in Cobble Hill, technically.)

These two stores, combined with the venerable Book Court and dusty Community Book Store, give the neighborhood the number of book store choices a region populated by authors, editors, critics and journalists should have.

And P.S. Books in DUMBO. This is all good news but Montague Street, which has mostly chains (and the wonderful Housing Works Thrift Shop), needs to be more hospitable to bookstores. The WaldenBooks left a long time ago. Bring in another branch of BookCourt!

Hey, nice post except.. SOUTH BROOKLYN!?? Stop it already with this ridiculous reference! I live in Bay Ridge and it is painfully obvious to me and close to a million other people you haven't got a clue as to where the hell places really are in Brooklyn. Enough with this solipsist hipster bullshit journalism.

Billy: South Brooklyn is what they called Red Hook, Carrol Gardens, Cobble Hill long before those real estate agent-invented names came along. It's an antiquated name, but it's an accurate term. Anyone who know the history of Brooklyn knows it. I know where every place in Brooklyn is. I've lived in the borough a long time and have always been a master of geography. You, friend, live in Bay Ridge. It is south Brooklyn, not South Brooklyn.

Well darn it Brooks, you are right. It's just that I've watched it used as you say by realtors, mainly in the Smith st. corridor, to market the area to many people who don't know the borough well at all. Many young people, priced out of the trendier northern hamlet of Williamsburg, tend to use the term freely in print and elsewhere as though the world is flat and south of Sunset Park is unchartered territory.

The original, running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York as they are steamrolled under or threatened by the currently ruthless real estate market and the City Fathers' disregard for Gotham's historical and cultural fabric. Est. January 2006.Contact Me

About Me

I have lived in New York City since 1988 and earn my bread as a writer. I began this blog in January 2006. Beyond that, don't be so nosy.
"I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism."
—Roberto Rossellini